A manufacturing plant, chemical plant, or other facility can include various types of equipment, and may include a large number of each equipment type. Maintaining this equipment can require a significant investment in personnel such as service engineers, technicians, or other field service personnel (hereinafter, collectively, “service agents”). Further, maintenance records must be kept to ensure that each equipment asset is maintained on schedule and with proper maintenance procedures. As a result, companies often contract routine equipment maintenance, repair, inspection, and condition monitoring to equipment maintenance providers that specialize in servicing equipment for a large number of clients. Each client can have several different client sites. Further, different facilities for a single client may have different preferred maintenance routines for the same type of equipment.
An equipment maintenance provider (hereinafter, “provider”) must ensure that field service personnel such as field agents are provided with correct inspection and maintenance routines (hereinafter, collectively, “maintenance routines”) for each particular client, each client site, and each equipment type and model. The provider typically stores and manages a list of all maintenance routines within a central database. A service agent can access the list of maintenance routines from a data device, for example, a handheld data collector (HDC), personal computer, or other data device (hereinafter, collectively, “HDC”), and select the required maintenance routine for the particular client and equipment that is being maintained from the list of all maintenance routines. Once selected, the service agent may provide a manual request to the HDC to download the maintenance routine to the HDC. After the maintenance routine is downloaded, the service agent can review the routine and begin maintenance on the selected equipment. Once the maintenance is completed, the service agent may then manually upload the maintenance results to the central database for review, data analysis, and/or archiving.
An equipment maintenance provider may service equipment for hundreds of clients, each with potentially dozens of client sites and equipment types. Proper maintenance relies on the service agent selecting the service routine that is appropriate for the particular company, client site, and equipment type, which can be a complex task that is prone to error.
A system and process for servicing equipment assets that more accurately provides a service agent with the correct maintenance routine for a selected client, client site, equipment type, and equipment model would be desirable.